‘FAA’ taking flight with Wimbledon’s big names

Associated Press

WIMBLEDON, England

Dealing with jitters early in a match is nothing new to Felix Auger-Aliassime.

Being among the favorites to win Wimbledon? Considering the Canadian is just 18 and never had won so much as one Grand Slam match until this week, well, yes, that’s not the sort of thing he is used to.

One more victory, and the kid known to many by his initials, “FAA,” could be taking on defending champion Novak Djokovic. Not that he’s worrying about that just yet.

The first player born in the 2000s to win a men’s match at a major, the 19th-seeded Auger-Aliassime progressed to the third round in his debut at the All England Club with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory over French qualifier Corentin Moutet on Wednesday.

“I can recall being 10 years old and playing [for] the first time away from home and being very nervous. Since (I was) very young, you kind of learn how to deal with this pressure, with the stress,” he said. “But at different stages of your career, you face different times. Now it’s Grand Slams. Maybe one day I’ll play finals of these events and I’ll be, for sure, extremely nervous. I think it’s emotions you can’t go against. It comes — and then it all depends on how you deal with it. Today, I was able to deal with it in a good way.”

Auger-Aliassime is hardly the only one contemplating the possibility that he could play for a major championship in the not-too-distant future. Much like Coco Gauff, the 15-year-old American who beat Venus Williams on Monday and won again Wednesday, Auger-Aliassime is fascinating folks because of his play, but also his age.

Tennis has been waiting for quite some time to discover a worthy successor to the Big Three of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic, who have won the past 10 major titles and 53 of the last 64. So there is a bit of irrational exuberance whenever some youngster comes along with the sort of talent and poise Auger-Aliassime seems to possess in abundance.

As of Wednesday evening, British bookmakers were listing Auger-Aliassime at 25-1 odds to lift the Wimbledon trophy, behind only the top three seeds: No. 1 Djokovic, No. 2 Federer and No. 3 Nadal.

That’s remarkable. The Montreal native only played one Grand Slam match, and lost it, until this tournament. He had never been ranked above 108th until this season.

But who else is there to rate right behind the game’s dominant figures? It’s just three days into the fortnight and the guys ranked Nos. 4-6 — Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, guys in their 20s all touted as up-and-comers — already are gone.

“I understand that people want to see a new winner of a Grand Slam. They don’t want to see three of us dominating the Slam titles. Eventually it’s going to come,” Djokovic said, then waited a comedic beat before adding with a smile: “in about 25 years.”